George Will has right to be dead wrong

I've interviewed lots of rape victims over the years. Some felt fear, others anger. Many endured humiliation, shame, shock and trauma.

Not one of them, ever, felt privileged.

But now comes George Will and a column so provocative, it's gotten him dumped from one of the largest newspapers in the Midwest. He's also been scolded by several U.S. senators and widely criticized by women's rights activists.

In his June 7 syndicated column, the conservative pundit disputed White House statistics about "the supposed campus epidemic of rape" and suggested that victims "proliferate" because victimhood is a "coveted status" that confers certain "privileges." It's all Obama's fault, of course, along with Washington progressivism "riding to the rescue" of co-eds who apparently cry rape for attention.

"It vows to excavate equities from the ambiguities of the hookup culture, this cocktail of hormones, alcohol and the faux sophistication of today's prolonged adolescence of especially privileged young adults," Will wrote.

Now I don't read Will regularly, not because I disagree with him, but because of the pomposity of his ostentatious vernacular. Put another way, he uses big words when small ones will do, and I got tired of turning to the dictionary to decipher every bloated sentence.

But I also disagree with him here. While false reports of rape do exist, they're the exception rather than the rule, and it's well accepted in the medical community that rape is a widely unreported crime. Society hardly confers a privileged status upon rape victims, especially on college campuses, and particularly if the rapist is well-liked. In too many cases, the woman is deemed the b-word that rhymes with witch, because hey, it was just a drunken misunderstanding and why can't she give the poor guy a break?

But I find the backlash against Will over the top. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch not only dropped his column, but called it "offensive and inaccurate" and apologized for its publication. The women's rights group UltraViolet launched a petition drive demanding his removal from the Washington Post, a move supported by the president of the National Organization for Women.

This isn't a free-speech issue, as no one has the right to pen a column, and the St Louis Post-Dispatch had every right to can him, even though I find its decision ill-advised. Rather, the Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt hit the proper tone in his defense of Will:

"George Will's column was well within the bounds of legitimate debate. I welcomed his contribution, as I welcome the discussion it sparked and the responses ... This is what a good opinion site should do. Rather than urge me to silence a viewpoint they disagree with, I would urge others also to join the debate ..."

For his part, Will stands by his column and said Friday that "indignation is the default position of certain people in civil discourse" fueled by the Internet. He's right; as someone who has repeatedly been the subject of firing demands — most recently after criticizing Jerry Remy's parenting skills — I can empathize.

George Will appears to be one of those misguided conservative men who cannot accept that women get raped a lot. If we don't share his views or find them absurd, we can turn the page or join the debate. But silencing him perpetuates the idea that we should be free from ideas we find offensive, that some opinions are off-limits or too dangerous for our fragile sensibilities.

Women are stronger than that. And rape survivors have survived far worse than Will's half-witted words.